Tuesday afternoon....

Hello:

My brother Ken sent me this picture, called Half Time at the Dog Show. Must be female dogs....

I must have a small bug. I got up at 4:30 this morning, wide awake. I went back to bed at 8:00 am and slept for two more hours. Plus I don't have an appetite.

I am enjoying reading Impeached, the story of President Johnson and what was happening in the 1860's. I finished on Sunday The Big Burn, what was happening in 1905 to 1910. As I mentioned, I have two books on terra cotta warriors found near Xi'an China. I will read one of these books but I will decide that once I get to those books.

But my next book is Bertz's Flood: The Remarkable Story of a Rebel Geologist and the World's Greatest Flood. I wanted to read this book before I went to China three years ago, but it was new then and I could not get it at the library before leaving. It is not the flood of the fictional bible, but the big flood of Missoula. NOVA had some programs on this in the past. It is those floods that give the Willamette Valley its deep, fertile dirt. In some places in the Valley the topsoil is over 100 feet deep, all as a result of these floods over time.

A few years ago when the DOT widened Highway 22 to four lane, about 8 miles to the west of Stayton, they dug out a big smooth rock. This rock was huge, the only rock around too. It was at least 30 feet high and a few hundred feet round. This is called an "erratic" a rock dumped by the flood.

I do hope your week is going well.

Steven